Hello all. I just got a Dell Inspiron for Christmas I threw Slack on it and everything is running great.

The only problem I'm having is that I can't switch between consoles like normal (Ctrl+Alt+F2, etc). I can use my ctrl and alt keys just fine, I'm guessing there is a problem with the F keys. Could it be because they're used to serve other functions, like switching to alternate displays, and turning off the wireless card and such? What is it that I need to do to get this working properly?

Thanks in advance.

I assume that you know that you only have one console in Slackware, runlevel 4. Use Ctrl+Alt+F6 to get to it & Ctrl+Alt+F7 to go back to X.
Regards,
Bill

Have you tried a different keyboard?

Have you tried Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F2?

My keyboard has an F lock. If I don't have it pressed, the F keys don't work as expected. Maybe check that. :-D

Are you trying to switch while in a graphical environment, like KDE? The extra functions on the keys shouldn't cause that problem since they are mapped the the function key. (on my keyboard its the blue Fn key) Are you using a standard us keyboard layout? Also try using the command chvt to see if you can switch that way or not.

Strange I have tty 1,2,3,4,5,6 & 7.

samac

For what it's worth, I have the same problem as the OP. I know my problem is not keyboard related, because I can use my Fn keys. Personally, I didn't know about the chvt command, but it doesn't help me. For example:

nick@mira:~$ chvt 1
Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console

The tty devices exist:

nick@mira:~$ ll /dev/tty[1-6]
crw------- 1 root root 4, 1 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty1
crw------- 1 root root 4, 2 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty2
crw------- 1 root root 4, 3 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty3
crw------- 1 root root 4, 4 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty4
crw------- 1 root root 4, 5 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty5
crw------- 1 root root 4, 6 2009-12-31 10:09 /dev/tty6

So confused :/.

From file /etc/inittab:
Numbers after consoles c[1-6] are runlevels.

Note the absence of "4" for consoles c[1-5].

@ TSquaredF:
You must not understand what I'm saying, please reread. By default, Slack has 6 virtual consoles. However, I have 3, due to the editing of /etc/inittab

EDIT: Nevermind, I was mistaken, there really is only one console in runlevel 4. But I use runlevel 3 and was not attempting this from X11.

@ Lufbery:
Thank you! I can't believe I've overlooked something so simple. The Fn key is blue, and so are the words F1,F2,etc. So I must press Ctrl+Alt+Fn+F2, otherwise the F key will perform some laptop function.

Glad voyciz managed to get the problem solved. I still have the issue, because I don't need to use an extra key to be able to use my Fn keys. Also, for what it's worth, I modified my inittab so that it gives me all 6 consoles in runlevel 4:

c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
c2:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux


Edit: oh, I needed to be root to use chvt. Oh well, at least that works.

Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks.

Using Ctrl+Alt+F6 are you able to load that tty? That is the default getty Slackware leaves open when X is running. It looks like it may be a driver issue with the keyboard, you can try manually setting the kbd options in your xorg.conf file, or run xorgsetup again if you don't have any custom configurations already done. Just make a backup of it first. I'm looking at some other threads with similar issues as you, so far they were all related to drivers and X settings. I would switch to runlevel 3 and see if you are able to switch to other vt's with the Ctrl+F keys, if so then we know it's X related.

Edit: there's a setting in xorg.conf called "DontVTSwitch", you may want to make sure that is commented out.

Check your BIOS settings.

There should be an option called "Function Key Behavior"

If set to "Multimedia" the functions keys will do things like change the volume, screen brightness, toggle wireless on/off, etc. If set to "Function" they should behave normally.

That's how it is on my Dell Mini 10v, anyway.